Sir: I am very disturbed, even after our earlier meeting in your office, as a guardian, about my son’s admission and the refusal of the university authorities to register him. That is why I choose public fora to reach you.

The fact is that the Kano University of Science and Technology has offered admission to so many people in Kano and beyond and refused them registration. In a letter dated Monday 6th Safar, 1432 equivalent to January 10, 2011, my son and other sons and daughters of Kano were offered admission to read their first degree in KUST. The admission, according to the said letter, ‘is to enable them make all necessary documentations at their Faculty and Department as JAMB Admission Letter would be provided to them later’. They were also instructed in the said letter to sign an undertaking with their Department that they will be of good behaviour throughout the period of their studies in the university. The last paragraph in the said letter advised thus: they are ‘strongly advised to remedy their Ordinary Level credit deficiency (if any) within four (4) Semesters’. However, I was baffled when my son returned later in the day to tell me that the university refused to register him and other students who share similar problems. However, despite this paragraph, boldly written in the admission letter, my son and others like him were refused registration by the KUST authorities, because, according to them they have deficiency in their Ordinary Level.

I find the decision of the university authorities so inappropriate. I understand that the university has the right to register or refuse to register any student who fails to meet the standard and criteria set by the university, in accordance with laws and regulations guiding the establishment of the university, but I find it very confusing, after writing boldly that the university authorities have given students four (4) semesters to remedy their deficiency to refuse to register some students.

This act smacks of double standard from the university authority. I want to believe also that this is an outright violation of the University’s Senate resolution, which agreed that the students with deficiency to be registered. If the KUST refused to abide by the resolution of the University’s Senate, that call to question the reputation of KUST authorities.

I think, in my own shallow understanding, the university should have, in writing, as they earlier stated in the admission letter offered these students, that the university authorities, after another Senate resolution, have withdrawn their earlier decision.